UNCONVENTIONAL GAZES - AN ARGOS CARTE BLACHE FOR VIDÉOGRAPHIES [21] FESTIVAL

In the frame of Vidéographies [21] - Festival des images expérimentales et numériques in Liège, Argos has been invited to propose a carte blanche with recent works from the collection. For this occasion, Unconventional gazes presents five works which deal with the position of the artist in relation to the depicted subject. We’re faced to observations of the public space, but these recordings are shuffled with the cinematic codes or edited to build new narrations, while, in other works, the viewer is brought to the limit of physical visibility or psychological legibility of the images.
In atlantis, Pieter Geenen shows a nocturnal landscape being scanned by a lightbeam and seems to explore a sunken universe, a land of which people seem to have left, with demolished and abandoned buildings, desolate forests and ghost ships. Vanagt’s The Corridor is perhaps a bas-relief disguised as a painting, disguised as a film: in fact, Vanagt initially followed a donkey during its weekly visits to old people in nursing homes in South-England, but, while editing, the film became shorter and shorter, as if the words that had accompanied the donkey’s visits got in the way.
In Monu-Mental, Krassimir Terziev introduces audio samples coming from libraries dedicated to narrative cinema production into recorded video fragments of the park in front of the Monument of the Soviet army, in Sofia, a place to spare time in chatting, drinking, smoking, practicing urban sports or just hanging around. On the contrary, in LEWITT HESSE RICHARD SILVER, a not-quite fixed camera tracks the ephemeral order composed on a warm afternoon by a fence, some trees, a set of shadows, and the passage of pedestrians and traffic: conceived as an hommage to Sol Lewitt, the work can be see as a 6-minute film-vérité.
Finally, in Stardust, Provost moves from New York to Las Vegas, filming the public going about their daily business. Through his understanding of cinematographic language, Provost manipulates the audience into generating narratives and developing characters. As the piece progresses, the plots that must be built become more complex and less believable, exposing the tricks Provost is playing.

Screening program:
Pieter Geenen – atlantis
2008, 11’10”, couleur, son.
Sarah Vanagt – The Corridor
2011, 6’45”, couleur, anglais, sous-titres anglais.
Krassimir Terziev – Monu-Mental
2011, 14’22”, couleur, son.
Shelly Silver & Frances Richard - LEWITT HESSE RICHARD SILVER
2010, 6’07”, couleur, intertitres anglais, son.
Nicolas Provost – Stardust
2010, 20’00”, couleur, son.